Quiet as the Grave by Kathleen O`Brien

him, just because he’s good-looking, and he’s a Frome.”
    He’d promised his wife? Keith wondered if Millner had always been this spineless. “Yes, of course. They’re just for background. I won’t use anything unless I can confirm it independently.”
    Millner nodded. He looked vaguely around the cemetery, as if he were trying to orient himself. The wind had picked up, and it blew limp, greasy strands of his hair across his sweaty brow.
    â€œHow can this, this place , be where my baby is? My little girl.”
    She wasn’t a little girl, you fool, you toad . Keithwanted to scream it across this cursed lawn, scream it until the cherubs on the old tombstones covered their ears in fear. She was a beautiful, passionate woman .
    â€œYou’ll get him, won’t you?” Millner’s eyes bulged strangely, as if grief were a tumor, swelling up from the inside, stretching him beyond endurance. “You were her friend, I remember that. She said she liked you.”
    â€œI liked her, too.”
    â€œThen promise me. You won’t let anything stop you? You won’t let any other case come first? Promise me you’ll get him.”
    If only he knew. Keith’s reasons for wanting to get Mike Frome were more powerful than Alton Millner, with his popping red eyes and his pathetic memories of a little girl who hadn’t existed for more than a decade, could ever imagine.
    â€œI’ll get him,” he said.
    And for a minute, in the wind, he thought he heard Justine laugh.

CHAPTER SIX
    D EBRA HAD BEEN WANDERING the aisles of the jewelry store for twenty minutes, waiting for her friend Judy Stott, who was arranging to have her new eternity ring resized.
    Judy was frustrated about having put on a few pounds, but since she’d been happily married to Phil Stott for ten secure years, Debra figured Judy could be excused. The eternity band had been her surprise anniversary present. Paul obviously still saw his wife as a svelte eighteen…hence the too-small ring.
    Lucky Judy . As the debate continued over whether to go slightly tight, in case Judy lost weight, or slightly loose, in case she didn’t, Debra found herself idling past the glittering displays of diamond solitaires.
    The very sight of all these gorgeous chips of rain-bowed ice lying here, untouched, made her ache. Though she knew it was stupid, she couldn’t help herself. She wanted one so bad. She ran her fingers along the glass countertop, trailing a haze of embarrassed longing.
    Finally she heard the chatter of a receipt printing. Judy signed a piece of paper, then came Debra’s way.
    â€œAll done.” Tucking her receipt in her purse, Judy glanced at the diamonds. “Are you shopping? Or just dreaming?”
    Debra flushed. She knew Judy didn’t mean to be unkind, but the comment stung. Judy had always said any woman would be crazy to pin her hopes on Rutledge Coffee. She had a point. How far could a relationship go when the man had already announced that marriage is the ultimate trap, and all women are just waiting to clamp their lethal teeth around his helpless heart?
    Of course, he’d been drunk at the time.
    â€œNeither. Just enjoying,” Debra said, turning away from the case. “They’re pretty.”
    Judy looked sympathetic, but skeptical. Debra felt a flash of annoyance. Honestly, sometimes married people could be so smug. But it quickly turned into a wave of self-disgust. What kind of sap was she becoming, falling for the whole lace and flowers and happily-ever-after package?
    â€œTruly,” she said, taking Judy’s arm. “I was just admiring the view. I know Ledge isn’t ready for marriage. He starts twitching if he even hears the word on TV.”
    â€œAnd you wouldn’t say yes even if he did ask, right?” Judy had said this about a million times. “You know he’s definitely not good husband material, right?”
    Debra